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Explore the Religious Worlds of New York, and the Religious Lives of Your Diverse Neighbors

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The religious landscape of the United States has shifted dramatically in recent years, with the arrival of new Americans from every corner of the globe and every faith tradition. If American students are to become truly educated, engaged citizens of their multicultural democracy, they need to understand its rich religious diversity. The Religious Worlds of New Yorksummer institute contributes to such understanding by helping K-12 teachers teach about the everyday lives of American religious communities.

From July 8 to26, 2019,our next institute will bring 25 teachers from throughout the United States to New York City, where they will work with leading scholars of religion, meet with diverse religious leaders, visit local houses of worship, explore the religious life of the city, and develop their own religious diversity curriculum projects. This combination of classroom and community-based education will introduce teachers to American religious diversity, help them distinguish between academic and devotional approaches to the study of religion, and give them the pedagogic tools they need to teach about contemporary lived religion.

America's public, private, and faith-based schools can play a vital role in fostering understanding across faith lines, but unfortunately most teachers are unprepared to teach effectively about religious diversity. Most students thus learn little more than basic facts about major religious traditions -- a superficial form of religious literacy that does not prepare them to participate in civic life. The Religious Worlds institute helps teachers move beyond this "dates and doctrines" pedagogy to a richer engagement with American religious life. Classroom by classroom, the teachers we work with are transforming the study of religion in K-12 schools, and empowering a new generation of Americans to bridge the divides between their religious worlds.